Automatic dishwashing and washing agents are available to consumers in a large number of presentation forms. These automatic dishwashing and washing agents are offered to the consumer typically in solid form, for example as powders or tablets, but increasingly also in liquid or gel form. Emphasis has for some time been placed principally on convenient dispensing of dishwashing and washing agents, and on simplification of the working steps necessary for carrying out a dishwashing or washing method.
Furthermore, one of the main objectives of manufacturers of automatic dishwashing and washing agents is to improve the cleaning performance of these agents, increased emphasis recently having been placed on cleaning performance in low-temperature cleaning cycles such as in cleaning cycles having reduced water consumption. To this end, new ingredients, for example more-effective surfactants, polymers, enzymes or bleaching agents, have preferably been added to the dishwashing and washing agents. Because new ingredients are available only to a limited extent, however, and because for environmental and economic reasons the quantity of the ingredients used for each washing cycle cannot be arbitrarily increased, there are natural limits to this approach to a solution.
In this connection, apparatuses for multiple dispensing of dishwashing and washing agents have very recently come under scrutiny by product developers. With regard to these apparatuses, a distinction may be made between on the one hand dispensing systems integrated into dishwashers, and on the other hand separate devices functioning substantially independently of the dishwasher. By means of these dispensing systems, which contain several times the quantity of dishwashing and washing agent required to carry out a treatment cycle, dishwashing- and washing-agent portions are automatically or semi-automatically dispensed into the interior of the water-conveying household system in the course of multiple successive treatment programs. For the consumer, the need for manual dispensing for each treatment cycle is eliminated. Examples of such apparatuses are described in European patent application EP 1 759 624 A2 (Reckitt Benckiser) or in German patent application DE 53 5005 062 479 A1 (BSH Bosch and Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH). It is advantageous in particular to equip such dispensers with a communication apparatus that permits data exchange between the dispenser and the control device of the automatic dishwasher. Besides radio transmission apparatuses, apparatuses for the optical transmission of signals and data are also known in this context from the existing art. Examples of such dispensing systems are found in US 2002/0088502A1 (Procter & Gamble) or EP2299892 (Henkel AG & Co KGaA).
Signal shadowing and signal screening represent a problem for all dispensing apparatuses known from the existing art for automatic dishwashers having wireless signal transmission. This problem has not yet been solved in satisfactory fashion.
The object of the invention is consequently that of overcoming the problems known from the existing art, and improving optical communication between a dispenser positionable in the automatic dishwasher and the automatic dishwasher.
This object is achieved by a dispensing system having the features of Claim 1.
Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.